Ghosts
by actualrealitytheory
Summary: PreRent. Angel muses about her past Christmases. Rating for some sexual content and swearing. Oneshot.


_I wrote this as a Secret Santa fic for a board I'm on. The request was pre-Rent Angel angst, focused on Christmas... here I go. PS I don't own Rent because I'm not a tall, lanky, messy-haired musical genius with ripped up shoes._

She watched the smoke from her cigarette swirl from her lips and spiral off into the dark blue night. It was almost like seeing her own breath in the chilled air, except this was gray and heavier. Maybe it was her own breath. After all, her heart felt gray and heavy, nothing like the carefree attitude that most people saw from her. She changed at night, became this dark, mysterious young woman. A seductress. She had to be. Her lined eyes swept down the street, silently scoffing at the twinkling white lights wrapped around the light posts. It was a miracle that they were still there… this was Alphabet City, after all. Maybe it was the Christmas spirit that kept the needy people that lived her from stealing them. She laughed to herself. Christmas spirit. It was all a fucking joke. Christmas was a fucking joke. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, shivering a bit in the cold, the thin jacket she was wearing not doing much.

The first Christmas she could remember, she was five. Her name then was still Javier, and her family was still happy. Nothing had hinted to the Morales family that little Javier wasn't the five-year-old boy that everyone thought he was. Nothing, until he asked his mama for the prettiest thing he had ever seen for Christmas. There was a lovely little dress in the window of the shop down the street, layers of pink and white ruffles with white lace on the front. Javier wanted so badly to wear the dress to Christmas Eve service, to have all the women fawn over how adorable he looked, like they did to all the other little girls. Javier didn't get the dress he wanted. He didn't even go to church on Christmas Eve. Instead, he stayed home with his father, slaps raining down on his young skin. He wasn't able to sit for three days after that night.

Years passed uneventfully after that, until Javier had been seventeen. By then, he had started calling himself Angel and trying to apply makeup like the models he saw in magazines. He wanted to be beautiful. He was in his room as he was most evenings, experimenting with his tiny, hidden supply of makeup, trying to make himself look as beautiful as possible. Soft Christmas carols were playing from his old record player, a small wreath hanging above his mirror as he worked. Javier was humming along in his soft tenor, swiping powder along his brow when the door creaked open. Javier watched his father's face contort in disgust and rage in the mirror, frozen. He couldn't piece time together after that, only knowing that he had been in the most excruciating physical and emotional pain he'd ever felt. He didn't even remember what he did, only that he had packed everything he owned that was dear to him in his small knapsack and run.

He wound up in New York City, where all the lost souls seemed to end up. From there, he didn't know what to do. No money, no job, underage… Javier turned to the streets to provide income, losing his virginity in a dark alley for 50 bucks and a scream. Despite his 'profession,' he met a man and fell in love, moving in with him just before Christmas. That had been the best one of his life. Him, Paris, a heart shaped pendant, a bottle of vodka and a small tree. Paris had been so much different than any other man he'd met before. He was suave, seductive, sweet… loving. Javier… Angel felt safe with him. And Paris said he loved Angel in return, fawning over her beauty and her body. Angel didn't know exactly when things changed, when everything fell apart…

She was now nineteen and had been with her lover for a year and a half. She came home that Christmas Eve, feeling dirty but with 100 bucks in her pocket to find… her street friend, Ivana, between Paris's legs, her mouth on his cock. Angel watched her finish him off, her stomach turning in disgust. Paris even had the gall to murmur Angel's name as he orgasmed, hands buried in Ivana's red wig. Angel walked calmly away from the scene, tears trickling down her face. The next day she found her own apartment and moved into it, leaving only the pendant behind for Paris.

And here she was, a year later, smoking a cigarette on the corner. She exhaled, the gray smoke hanging around her face like some sort of twisted scarf. The butt of her smoke flew down from her long fingers to the slush covered sidewalk, stubbed out a moment later by the heel of her knee high boots. Angel crossed her bare arms over her chest, shivering a little in a slight breeze. The piece of paper in her pocket was burning a hole in her denim miniskirt. She fished it out, unfolding the letter and reading the words for the twentieth time that day. Goddamn Paris. He broke her heart… now he was possibly giving her a life sentence. "Dear Ms. Schunard, this letter has been sent to inform you that you may have been exposed to HIV…" Bullshit. May have? Paris never wanted to use a condom. "Don't you trust me, Angel-cakes? Just trust me…" And she had been stupid enough to believe that crap. Angel reached into her other pocket, pulling out a small lighter. Flipping it open, she held the letter by a corner and waved it in the flame, watching with a sick sort of satisfaction as the letter turned into ember and ash. She dropped the remnants to the sidewalk and stomped out the fire as she had done with her cigarette. A car pulled up to the corner as she was putting her lighter away. Angel hitched on that grin, that grin that made her sick to have on her face and sauntered over to the car. "Merry Christmas, honey," she purred in a voice not her own, arms leaning on the rolled down window. Tomorrow, she would go to the Center and get tested. Tomorrow she would find out whether or not she had gotten herself an early death. Tonight… tonight she would celebrate in her own way, wrapping something else before giving someone a present. Angel heard the faint strains of a carol on the car radio as she slipped into the passenger seat. "It's the most wonderful time of the year…" She fought back a bitter laugh. Clearly they had not heard of her ghosts of Christmases past.


End file.
